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Syd's Easel Blog

Welcome and thank you for visiting my web studio. Here you can find out what's new on my easel, recent commissions, works in progress and new directions. I'll also share current news about upcoming shows and events.

A Beautiful, Limited Edition Book

Oct 29, 2017

One of the fruits of this summer’s work is Italian Panels, a collaboration with my husband, poet Mike Dillon. The book features fourteen paintings and twenty-three prose “panels” as it explores vivid, memorable moments where past and present cross paths in that beautiful country.   The painted images exist outside my usual body of work and were inspired by the back and forth process between image and written word. We’d been exploring the possibilities of such a project for a long time and are very happy with the results. <img border="0" height="437" src="https://0201.nccdn.net/1_2/000/000/139/dd3/FullSizeRender-66.jpg#RDAMDAID23588009" width="400"> <img border="0" height="304" src="https://0201.nccdn.net/1_2/000/000/113/156/FullSizeRender-68.jpg#RDAMDAID23588011" width="400"> Below: "Breakfast Room, Ravenna" — 30" x 24" — acrylic on canvas<img border="0" height="500" src="#RDAMDAID23588012" width="400">   Italian Panels was hand-bound at The Bremerton Letterpress Co. in a limited edition of 50 copies using letterpress printed covers on French Paper Company’s Kraft-Tone paper. Interior pages were printed offset on Mohawk Super Fine paper by Blue Sky Printing.   Typeface is Didot, from a group of typefaces produced by the Didot family of France in 1784.   Signed copies of Italian Panels will be available for sale in my studio during Art in the Woods, along with a few of the original paintings featured in the book.

From the Heart of Summer

Jul 12, 2016

<h2>From the Heart of Summer </h2><div class="plain"> “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” Lucian Freud Though the summer has been much cooler than the last three, I’ve moved my easel into the garden. I love the long days and getting up with the birds to paint (ospreys are particularly plentiful this year). The light outdoors is so much better. For me, it’s all about the light.My annual Indianola Days open house with celebrated fiber artist Melinda West is on deck — July 23-24, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. For those of you who haven’t experienced Indianola Days, it’s a wonderful, community event tied to late summer’s lowest tide. There’s a sandcastle contest, salmon bake, games, fun run, pet parade and Saturday night dance.My studio and garden will be filled with our new work. We’ll also be working on new projects both days. To learn more about Melinda’s beautiful creations, please visit: <a href="http://www.melindawest.com" link target="_blank">www.melindawest.com</a>One of the delights I find in painting is the daily summons to challenge myself. As time goes on, that summons becomes stronger. Since spring, I’ve developed a lighter palette, which complements the bright, primary colors that characterize my art. The new paintings rely much more on texture and a fluid, expressive line — the painterly word is “loose.” To the eye of the beholder, it means more motion and adventurous energy.Working outside lends itself to this approach. I feel good about the results.<img border="0" height="400" src="https://0201.nccdn.net/4_2/000/000/071/260/SterlingAtWork.jpg#RDAMDAID23588013" width="400"> <img border="0" height="400" src="#RDAMDAID23588014" width="400"> I hope to see you this summer, whether it’s in one of three local venues, or in the Bay Area.      </div>

A Wonderful Honor

Jan 25, 2016

<h2>The CVG Show, a statewide, juried art show hosted by Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton, held its ninth annual event Saturday, January 23. The festivities took place at the venerable Admiral Theatre in downtown Bremerton. A good crowd turned out for dinner and the awards ceremony. </h2><div class="plain"><div> </div></div><div class="plain"><h2>Eight hundred pieces were entered for the show, and 130 were chosen. It was a great honor for my painting, "Domenica,"  to receive the Mayor's Award for Best of Show. </h2></div><div class="plain"><div> </div></div><div class="plain"><h2>The exhibit runs through February 25. If you'd like to see it, check the CVG website for hours. It's well worth the trip: The artwork, from all over the state, is diverse and really good.</h2></div><div class="plain"> </div><div class="plain">Interesting things are happening in downtown Bremerton. We discovered, a block away from CVG, a husband and wife team with a new letterpress business: You can watch them work their antique presses to put ink to paper as it was done in centuries past. They're artists, and artisans, and their work is beautiful.</div><div class="plain"><img border="0" src="#RDAMDAID23588015" width="400"> </div><div class="plain"><div><img border="0" src="#RDAMDAID23588016" width="150"><img border="0" src="https://0201.nccdn.net/4_2/000/000/023/130/FullSizeRender-12.jpg#RDAMDAID23588017" width="250"> </div></div>

February Landscape show

Jan 16, 2009

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"Firmament" accepted for CVG Juried Show

Jan 16, 2009

' daid="3848491" bmargin="0" tmargin="0" rmargin="0" lmargin="0" border="0"> My triptych "Firmament".The title was taken from the following poem by Denise Levertov.   Firmament Fish in the sky of water -- silvery as traveling moon through cloud–hills -- down current whisks, or deeper fins into depths, to rise or sagely wait in the milky mist of disturbed sediment, wheeling briskly at least whim, at one with the aqueous everything in shines in.                             -- Denise Levertov    <img align="left//0104.nccdn.net/1_5/2aa/0a8/236/1232154347210907.JPG?>' style="margin: 15px 15px 15px 0px;float: left" bmargin="15" border="0" daid="3848492" lmargin="0" tmargin="15" rmargin="15"> Firmament(detail)